Limeade
by kismet-wayfinder
Summary: Completed Two-shot sequel to bxg "Lemonade". If you read that, then this is a continuation, done from Ben's perspective rather than Gwen's, as he comes to a realization regarding just what it is he sees in both Eunice and Gwen. Bwen, bxg, Cousinshipping.
1. Chapter 1

**[AN: This is a sequel to my previous bxg oneshot, **_**Lemonade**_**. A reviewer for that said they'd like to see it continued on from Ben's POV and I thought it'd be a neat idea (so thank you for suggesting it – I believe your pen name is TvMatchMaker or something to that effect!)  
>Anyway, I don't want to make the original oneshot a chapter story though, soo I decided to continue to story's idea in the form of a two shot, told from Ben's point of view as suggested. Oh, and this chapter will again feature Eunice, of course. It might not make complete sense wo reading **_**Lemonade**_** first. Thanks for reading! [/AN]  
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><p>As Ben looked back to his cousin, he felt a jolt of feeling akin to – strangely enough – electricity bolt up his spine. They were still hand-in-hand, after she'd helped him to his feet by pulling him up from the shallow water the pair had fallen into together. Feeling a splash of water strike his face from somewhere off to the side, the brown-haired and green-eyed young man was snapped out of his seconds' long reverie; releasing Gwen's hand, he turned to look at who'd splashed him.<p>

"What's with you?" Eunice asked him as he looked over to her, a goofy grin on her face. "You're staring at Gwen like you've never seen her before in your life, silly."

Using this as a chance to turn her head away and conceal her momentary blush, Gwen did just that and gave a slightly forced laugh before saying, "Yeah, you're so odd sometimes, Ben."

Ben looked back at his cousin with a slightly raised eyebrow. He had noticed the strange way in which she'd spoken, and he was curious to understand what was going on, if something was indeed going on. "Gwen?" he said to her. "Uh, what's with the weird laugh?"

"What weird laugh?" she asked, before reaching down and splashing him in the face with water, and then doing the same to Eunice, who returned the splash with a laugh.

The girls certainly were laughing a lot for some reason. Ben noticed this and again, he wanted to know what was up with it, but evidently Gwen wasn't going to tell him and just forget about asking Eunice, who was clearly having too much fun to be serious with him. Still, Ben supposed it was admirable enough. Eunice's carefree smile and playful nature was great to see, considering how upset he'd seen her be in times past.

This made him finally give in and smile. After all, maybe he should just be carefree once in a while, too. This _was_ a day off from his hero time responsibilities anyway, right?

"Alright, alright – two can play at this game," he said aloud then, before squatting downward in the shallow part of the water and waving his arms through the water on either side of him, causing two large splashes to be aimed right at Gwen and Eunice at the same time.

"Hey!" the latter called out, before using both hands to throw water right back at Ben.

"You started it!" he returned, splashing her again, before throwing his arms over his face as Gwen aimed another splash in his direction.

Getting an idea and growing a spontaneous, mischievous grin, Ben called for a time out and turned around, not facing either of the girls. He knew what he'd do. He had a not-so-secret weapon right on his wrist, after all.

"Oh, no you don't!" Gwen cried out as she cottoned on, wading as quickly as was possible toward her cousin as he began to glow and change. "That's totally cheating, Ben!"

But it was too late to do much of anything about it really, and soon enough the teenaged Tennyson had morphed into a far taller, broad-shouldered, monstrous looking alien form from his Watch. "_Ultimate Humungousaur_!"

"Oh boy," Gwen said, bringing a hand to her face. "Forget cheating – this is commandeering the entire splash fight!"

"Nobody likes a sore loser, Gwen," the alien dinosaur form said in its deep voice, before reaching down and paddling with his arms, creating a small wave that soon crashed forward over both the girls.

However, to his slight surprise, Ben soon looked onward to find that the girls hadn't been remotely splashed by his actions. Rather, a vast, purple-colored shield of sorts was cast over Gwen and Eunice both. "And you call _me_ a cheater!"

"Like you said earlier Ben, two can play at this game," Gwen called back.

Sighing, Ultimate Humungousaur charged forward into a deeper part of the water, before knocking wave after wave of water in Gwen's direction ceaselessly, until at long last the Anodite protective shield was gone, leaving the blond and the redhead both to be knocked over by the last blow.

Laughing loudly in his Ultimate Humungousaur form, Ben soon changed back to his normal self, before watching as Eunice slowly shook off the wave and got back to her feet in the water to offer a hand up to Gwen, who thanked her and got to her feet also.

"I guess we're even now, huh?" Ben said, grinning in a smug manner as he folded his arms across his chest.

Wading a few steps forward, Gwen lifted one of her arms to seemingly scratch at her other arm.

"Finally conceding to loss then, are yo –" Ben's words were unexpectedly cut short when he watched his cousin swiftly outstretch her raised arm in his direction as if she were throwing a ball at him; in reality, she had thrown a light blast of her Anodite powers his way, and he soon felt its wrath as it knocked him backward into the water.

"_Now_ we're even," Gwen said, exchanging a smile with Eunice before looking back to surely watch Ben struggle to upright himself in the deep water, before conceding defeat his own self.

Ben heard his cousin's words, and while he correctly assumed that she'd be expecting him to say she had won this round and thusly the entire water-war, he was having none of it. No, to him they weren't_quite_ even. He could still be plenty mischievous if he so chose. Surely this simple fact had not slipped from Gwen's mind since their earlier adventures together, when they took their vacation with Grandpa Max at only the age of ten years old?

Growing quite still, Ben allowed himself to float upward to the water face-first, though he drew his much needed breath as subtle as was possible. He needed to if he was going to pull this off. Sure enough, he decided that he was likely being convincing enough he soon found, for Gwen was beginning to call out his name. Sure, she sounded annoyed _now_, but just wait until he still wouldn't stir – let's see how annoyed, smug and proud she'd be _then_, he thought to himself.

_You know, she is going to beat you senseless once she realizes what prank you're pulling_, Ben's inner voice said to him. Maybe so, but it was what it was – a prank. She'd pulled pranks on _him_ before. _But you're almost an adult now and this is whole-heartedly immature._

"_Ben_! Come on and get up already. You're not convincing and you're definitely not funny so there's no need to keep on doing this! Stop acting like a jerk and sore loser already."

_On the other hand, she's not being that great at the moment either, calling you names and shouting at you. _And while Ben's first inward inclination about not trying to toy with Gwen would have likely been better to go with, it was this last inward notion that he chose to fully side with. If he was already acting like a jerk, _why stop now_? he thought. And then he heard motion – water parting somewhat.

"Maybe he really is hurt!" Eunice's voice cried aloud, clearly a little alarmed.

"I don't know . . ." Gwen's voice answered her. "Pretending to be hurt is _just_ like something he'd do to get back at me. Trust me on this."

"But we should maybe check on him, just in case," Eunice insisted, and then Ben heard more wading sounds; he felt slight changes in the way the water brushed against him as he floated there – they were both heading toward him now.

"Well, okay, I guess checking on him wouldn't be a bad idea or anything."

It bothered him that Eunice felt so genuinely spooked by his actions, but if he could just hold out a little more, then he could really get Gwen good. After all, she wasn't exactly rushing to his aid at the moment; no, she'd just presume he was pulling a prank first. _Well what if I _was _hurt?_ Ben thought inwardly, imagining himself lying good-as-dead somewhere while Gwen stood merely feet away, annoyed with him rather than worried about him.

Still, even as he thought this, a pang of guilt resonated somewhere within the pit of his stomach. _. . . I'm such a jerk – she's right. If I was really hurt, Gwen would be the first person at my side, and I know it. This is stupid. I'm being stupid._

"Alright, alright!" he called out suddenly, moving to paddle forward just slightly as he looked back at Gwen and Eunice both. "I'm not hurt – I was just kidding."

Exchanging glances with each other before glaring back at him, Ben flinched as the two girls simultaneously – and in the same, pitch-perfect synched tone of voice as well – shouted at him in a scolding manner, saying, "_You had me scared to death_!"

Now, not that it was really a surprise to be shouted at for what he'd done (Ben figured he pretty much deserved it anyway) but as he watched Gwen and Eunice match each other action for action, motion for motion, shout for shout and glare for glare at him, a strange realization fell over him at once. It was nothing new. It was something he'd known for a good long while now and yet for whatever the reason, it was now that it struck a chord with him and caused a light bulb to click on in his mind.

_The Unitrix took after Gwen when it became Eunice_, he thought to himself. He'd thought about it a few times before, but it was different this time. Ben figured it was like looking at one of those optical illusion pictures which had two completely different images within it despite the fact that you could only see whatever your eyes decide to _let_ you see at first. Sometimes it took a long time to see the other, hidden image within. Well this was like that, more or less. He had figured it was interesting that the Unitrix took after Gwen before, but not in any particular way. And yet, now he was.

Now he _really_ was.

"I'm sorry – I'm really sorry about trying to prank you like that," he said aloud, and he was trying to sound as sincere as he felt, even if he was a bit preoccupied now with his memory of falling near instantly for Eunice; Eunice was almost perfect in his eyes – even with Julie considered (and he happened to consider her to be great) Eunice was somehow more special; Eunice was technically not a human all the time, however – she had become one when she took after Gwen.

_Gwen_ . . . Ben thought, and he looked directly into Eunice's eyes, before slowly turning his head to look into his cousin's instead, and interestingly enough, his earlier bolt of electrical feeling returned. This, along with a strange gnawing feeling in his stomach – it was enough to make Ben feel almost lightheaded from the inward revelation of it all. And to think, the two girls before him clearly had no idea what he was thinking, and he himself had no clear idea what they'd think about what he was thinking if they had any idea.

"Seriously," he said aloud, in a quiet and somewhat distant sounding voice as he stepped forward, placing one hand on Eunice's shoulder while the other reached for Gwen's hand, grasping it. "I should've known better than to scare you."

"It's okay," Eunice was the first to say. "But please don't do that again."

"I won't," Ben promised her, before giving Gwen's hand a squeeze. "Gwen, do you forgive me too?"

"Of course I do," she said, even if she did grow strangely still in the water as he squeezed her hand more tightly. "But she's right. Even if you only keep your promise so that you don't scare Eunice anymore – I can understand that; I'm supposed to be used to you being a dofus, right? Well - still, just keep the promise for her sake all the same."

"I made the promise to you too, Gwen," he clarified, before saying to Eunice, "Would you mind if I had a word with my cousin for a minute?"

"Oh, okay," Eunice said nonchalantly. "I'll go see what Kevin's up to then. He's being kinda quiet today, isn't he?"

"Yeah – kind of," Ben replied, keeping his hold on Gwen's hand as Eunice turned and waded toward the somewhat steep bank that would lead her out onto dry land.

"What is it, Ben?" Gwen asked him, though she kept her face turned away from him.

"Well, I just wanted to ask why you thought I'd make sure Eunice was okay but not make sure _you_ were okay about something?" he asked, for he had been perhaps a little hurt to find that Gwen considered this a possibility at all. "I don't take my concern for you lightly."

"Yet you tried to make me think you were hurt," Gwen pointed out.

"You said you forgive me!"

"And I _do_ forgive you! I'm just saying, I figured it was Eunice that made you decide against the prank more than anything else."

"You know, I realized something today," Ben said, and as he spoke, he stepped back slightly and moved to face Gwen, looking back into her eyes as he continued to hold her hand all the same.

"I did, too – up there by your car just earlier today, as a matter of fact," Gwen replied, and though he hadn't expected this answer, he continued on to try to make his initial point anyway.

"I thought about the day we met Eunice – I thought about what we ended up finding out a_bout_ Eunice," he said, before squeezing Gwen's hand once again before finally letting it go.

"Oh," she replied in a bit of a fallen voice, slowly withdrawing her released hand. "Well . . . when you thought about Eunice, what did you realize exactly? Was it that she's more, for lack of a better term . . ._interesting_ to you than, say . . . Julie is?"

"With all due respect to Julie, yes, that was kind of part of it," Ben admitted, and he marveled at how Gwen could know so much about him without him saying a word about it in the first place.

"I kind of sort of figured this would end up happening, to be honest," Gwen said to him then.

"You did?" Ben replied; he was surprised for he considered Gwen to mean that she kind of sort of figured that he would end up making his big epiphany about she herself – not specifically just the part about how Julie factored into it.

"Well of course I did, Ben," Gwen said, a strangely sad look on her face. "It's obvious that there's something about Eunice that really gets to you. There's something strange about her that puts everything you see into this whole new perspective. I have no idea what it is, but it's there."

"You have no idea what it is, but I do," Ben said, now understanding more what Gwen had meant before. "That's what I was getting to anyway – the something I see in Eunice, well . . ."

"Well . . . what?" Gwen asked.

"The something is you. She got it from you, and you've always had it all along. I guess the way things being the way they are it just wasn't obvious to me. You are my cousin. You _are_ with Kevin."

"Ben . . ." Gwen said in a cautious sort of voice, her eyes locked with his. "I _am_ with Kevin and yes, you and I _are_ family. We can't pretend either of those aren't the case because it's not right or fair to Kevin, and because well, you can't change who you born to be."

"What if who you were born to be – or, who you were born to be around – what if you already have it despite circumstances like these?" Ben asked, and he noted Gwen's surprised look; he didn't blame her – he himself had his doubts as to whether he'd tried to string together a sentence as articulate as that before in all his life without complete failure – maybe he'd managed to make sense, though.

"You know that you're my dofus cousin and that I love you," Gwen said to him, before hesitating and then adding, "But . . . it's also the case that you're just _Ben_ and I still love you but not because you're my dofus cousin."

"So you do understand everything I'm trying to say," Ben said, and though his veins surged with currents of electricity to the point of making him feel almost actively on fire, a strange ache in his stomach came along with it; it was the ache that comes with having something you want or need just within grasp but also just without your grasp at exactly the same time.

"I understand, yeah," Gwen replied, her heart sinking slightly as she heard the sound of Kevin's voice as he conversed with Eunice.

Hearing Kevin as well, Ben said, "But you're still with Kevin. And I'm your dofus cousin no matter how many ways you look at me."

"Well you know . . . maybe we could just pretend for a moment that it's different – that it's all different."

"What do you mean, Gwen?"

"Look," she said, reaching out to take hold of Ben's hand suddenly; he reacted by squeezing it in return, before placing his other atop hers as well. "Just pretend for the next sixty seconds that this water we're in is some distant planet and we're not attached to anyone else, in any sense of the term. No one else is here but us and we can be whatever and whoever we want."

"Okay," Ben said. "We're on a distant planet, in a completely different universe even. We're just here, and all that matters is the next sixty seconds, because once it's up, we're back on Earth."

"Back on Earth," Gwen repeated back, before giving a bit of a laugh and then saying, "It's strange- I think it's harder to breathe on Earth than it is on this foreign planet."

"I know what you mean," Ben replied, before catching sight of Kevin and Eunice as they began to head for the water together. "Still, it looks like we're in for a crash landing right back to it anyway."

Hearing Eunice's voice grow nearer from behind her, Gwen gently withdrew her hand from Ben and simply looked back at him as she heard Kevin answer whatever the blond girl had asked him.

"What's up with you two?" Kevin then called aloud to them from the bank. "Are you just gonna stand out here all day or something?"

"If only we could," Gwen murmured, in a voice only loud enough for Ben to hear, before she reluctantly turned to wade toward the bank.

Following after her, Ben had no idea what to think or feel at the moment– and he certainly had no ideas about what to do with his thoughts and feelings once he _did_ pinpoint them for certain. He just knew that for those few seconds he'd reached a new, higher plain of thought and possibility. He figured that, even though it did result in a crash and burn . . .

. . . Gwen would always be beyond worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

******I've been ridiculously busy. I apologize for the non-updates from me. Nonetheless, t****hanks for the reviews of part 1, here's part 2, the final part of Lemonade&Limeade!  
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><p><strong> (1 Year Later After the Waterhole Occurence)<strong>

Ben Tennyson pushed the pedal of his car to the floorboard as he and Gwen flew down the main road that would take them back to Bellwood. They (along with Kevin) had just been through one hectic and chaotic battle that had ensued little more than an hour beforehand in the next town over. He was now speeding back home because, after all, though he hadn't checked the specific hour of night recently, Ben knew that it had to be much later than either his or Gwen's parents would have appreciated.

Of course, if they did somehow manage to escape being grounded after taking an ax to their respective curfews, then there would still be the matter of the five-hundred and some odd little jobs that Ben knew was up ahead for himself in order to repay his parents for all the damage he was now certainly responsible for. No matter how good the intent had been, he knew it wasn't plausible to go and flip a car (Kevin's car, to be precise) into a building sideways (causing a domino effect of reactions that ultimately ended with nearly an entire block of shops having an innumerable amount of monetary damages done unto them) and not get a several months' long grounding in the process.

"Hey you," Gwen then said, snapping her fingers in front of her cousin's face to get his attention. "Earth to Ben – we're going eighty five miles an hour in a sixty-five mile per hour speed zone!"

"Sorry," he said with a sigh. "I just want to get us back to Bellwood a-sap, you know? I guess at some point I got lost in my thoughts. It _is_ kinda stressful to half-destroy a neighboring town's shopping area while being past curfew at the same time."

"Past curfew?" Gwen repeated back, before reaching for her cell phone and fumbling with it to illuminate its screen, which she then lifted upward to show to Ben. "We hit 'past curfew' ages ago. Do you see the time? It's past three in the morning now!"

"_Not helping_," Ben replied as he moved a hand to the stick shift of the car, his foot moving over to its clutch; "And before you say it," Ben then added, as he shifted the car into its next gear. "_Yes_, I am well aware that we're now speeding faster than we were a couple minutes ago. Fair warning – if you didn't like going eighty-five miles per hour then I'm pretty sure you won't like going at a hundred."

Slipping her phone into her purse before tightening her seat belt, Gwen replied, "You know I usually wouldn't care – but think about the other cars that could be on the road – getting back home right now isn't an issue of life or death, after all."

"You mean the cars that we haven't encountered at all whatsoever all so far, Gwen?" Ben said. "Besides, whether or not this is life or death is a matter of opinion."

At this, Gwen rolled her eyes. Ben, however, paid her no mind and instead rolled down the drivers' side window to let the cool, crisp summer night air rush into his vehicle. As it whooshed over him, he felt – for just a fraction of a moment – the weight of the world on his shoulders fly away. Unfortunately for him, said weight simply reacted as a boomerang, coming back around to hit him even harder with the guilt that came along with knowing that he – accidently or not – managed to trash his best friend's car that night, on top of everything else.

"_Oh, you stopped an alien in its tracks, alright, but you destroyed 3__rd__ and 9__th__ avenue in the process and also, you know, you destroyed my freaking _car_!" _

As Kevin's words rang out in Ben's memory, he looked over to Gwen and said, "Kevin was really angry with me when we dropped him off at that taxi service outside of town. I mean, he wouldn't even let me drive him back to Bellwood with us. Heck, he wouldn't even accept the cab fare I offered him."

"I know. I was there, remember?" Gwen replied.

"My point is that Kevin was beyond angry with me. How long do you think he'll stay that way?"

"I don't know . . . but however long it turns out to be, it still probably won't be for as long as he stays mad at me," Gwen answered quietly, before looking back at Ben.

"As much as I hate to say it, you're probably right," he returned in an apologetic tone of voice, shaking his head, "even though he really has no reason to be mad at you at all. I lost my cool and tossed the car at the stupid thing, not you. Guilt by association – that's what those crime shows call it anyway, right?"

Shrugging, Gwen said, "Either way, I _did_ do something, Ben – I _did_ happen to take your side over his, remember? I'm sure there's some unwritten rule about always having to take your boyfriend's side in an argument. Still – whatever – forget the rules; you caught Kevin's car when that alien threw it Ultimate Spidermonkey's way. From where I was standing, you had two choices: either throw whatever was handy and pin him down where he was or let the alien make an escape instead. You threw the car, of course; it was just simple reflex. Kevin will come around to realizing this, too . . .I'm not sure how quickly he'll let go of the me-not-taking-his-side thing, though."

Moving his hand over, Ben gave Gwen's knee a consoling sort of pat and said, "That's the sort of thing that always made it almost impossible for Julie and me to work together as a girlfriend and boyfriend in the end – all those, like you said, unwritten rules."

"Well either way it's thoroughly obnoxious – I can say that much," Gwen replied with a heavy, disgruntled sort of sigh. "You know what? People shouldn't try to be together at all if they can't just simply _make each other happy_. Why does it have to be any more complicated than that in the first place?"

Ben could quite clearly see that Gwen had reached her boiling point, temper-wise. As much as he wanted to agree with her, maybe he wouldn't say the right thing, he thought. Maybe he'd make her angrier, and really, that was the last thing either of them needed.

It didn't matter though, for Gwen soon spoke up again. "Sometimes I think about last summer – I think about the water hole and how Eunice and Kevin were both there that day . . . I mean, seriously, two of the people we both really, really like but in the end we thought that, just maybe, the feelings weren't as strong for them as we'd assumed they should be . . ."

At this, Ben opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as Gwen spoke yet again, "I'm being crazy, though. We made the right decision in the first place – our family wouldn't get it, _Kevin_ wouldn't like it or get it – er, well, Kevin _might_ get it, but he definitely wouldn't like it – I, I don't know, Ben, what do you think?"

Ben had seen Gwen like this before – he knew the drill. She might ask a question or hint at wanting advice for some reason or another, but as soon as he obliged her with a response she'd be giving him a hard time for somehow giving the wrong answer or poor advice – and even if he went through an entire mental list of what should be said, each and every single little thing would be incorrect according to her. He wanted to help her feel less confused, but how to do so? Considering her tendency to shut him down and the fact that he also felt confused about whether or not to withhold his feelings for her, Ben was no better off than she was in the first place.

So, in the end – he figured - what _could_ he really say?

_Oh, you know what, Gwen? You're totally right - We should just ditch the whole idea of you and Kevin and be together now._ Sure, he could say that if he wanted to be an even bigger jerk to Kevin.

_Well we both love Kevin – he's our best friend – but maybe you're not meant to be_. And if he said that, he figured Gwen would tell him he should get his head examined for sounding like he was quoting a sappy romance novel.

_Yes, we _did_ agree to not go for anything because of the trouble it could cause before, but it's been on my mind ever since and I wish we hadn't agreed on it in the first place, Gwen._ Worse still, Ben inwardly decided, this last potential reply sounded almost too pushy; no - his initial instinct was right, he then figured – he'd just keep his mouth shut. . . . . . . Or _would_ that be best?

Soon enough, the frazzle-minded Tennyson found himself inwardly repeating a singular mantra, over and over and over again in his head: _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing. . . _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing. . . _ _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing. . . _ _Tell Gwen -__

"_Ben_!" Gwen then exclaimed, causing Ben to snap out of his inner dialogue.

"What the – I didn't even _say_ anything yet!" he cried out defensively, looking over to Gwen.

"Look back ahead! Pay attention, Ben!" she shouted at him as she reached over and took hold of the steering wheel to give it an abrupt turn, one that caused the car to swerve sharply to the right, tilting onto its side slightly.

Another second later and the car had landed flatly once more, and a freaked out Ben pressed down on the brake as hard as he could, all the while as Gwen now tried to steady the steering wheel back in place to no real avail. As Ben continued to press down on the brake, the car itself went into a spin of sorts, screeching its tires loudly as the pair of teenagers spun out in a dizzying spiral of exhaust fumes and burnt rubber. As the car spiraled, the inner mantra returned, replaying back again twice as fast as before, seemingly the only thing Ben had left to cling onto in his mind as he lost control of his vehicle completely.

_Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing! _ _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing! _ _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing! _ _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing!_ _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing!_ _Tell Gwen I still love her; Don't tell Gwen a thing!_ _Tell Gwen I still love her -!_

Six and a half rotations later and the car came to halt, right at the edge of the road, barely escaping the possibility of tipping over onto its side into the nearby ditch. In all actuality, Ben probably should've done one of two things right then and there: he should have either leapt from the car and kissed the pavement, thanking the heavens above that the spin-out hadn't resulted in anything worse happening than what had, _or_ he should have burst into tears out of fear and humiliation, for now he might very well need to call his parents for a tow truck, depending on whether or not he'd burnt his car out too badly into the spin-out.

Of course, neither of those logical thoughts were on his mind. No, when the car had come to its abrupt halt, so had his mind; the wheels were stuck quite randomly at the edge of the main road, and likewise his brainwaves were stuck on one, singular thought: _tell - Gwen - I - still - love - her_.

So rather than leaping from the car or bursting into tears, Ben quickly turned to look back to his cousin. She wore a flushed face; it was the kind of expression you only earn after coming out on the good end of a dangerous experience. That look in her eyes - that flash of electricity amongst the lime-hue of her irises - it was the last determining factor for him to show her what he felt he needed to tell her, now or never. "Gwen," Ben said, his voice coming out in a strangely raspy sort of way, one that indicated a sort of breathlessness.

"Ben?" she replied, sounding equally needy for air; air was what neither of them recieved, however, when Ben proceeded to promptly lean forward across the seat-dividing console, crashing his lips against hers in a rough, impatient sort of way. It was a kiss he'd been dreaming up for ages now without even realizing it, and now that it was in process, he couldn't function right unless his hand was now moved to tangle in Gwen's hair, his other hand resting atop her knee - indeed, it was Gwen herself who had to break the dance of fumblings and other embraces to speak a moment later.

"_Ben_," she said breathlessly, even as he kept his fingers in her hair, stroking its fiery hue idly as he rested his lips against her collarbone. "You trashed his _car_ - he finds out about _this_ and . . . well, Kevin might very well _kill_ you with his bare hands."

Ben didn't even have to think about it twice this time. Smiling faintly, he lifted his face to look back into Gwen's eyes and said simply, "Yeah, but, Gwen . . . you're beyond worth it."


End file.
